Feature wishes for CMS Made Simple

[urheat]

Don’t get me wrong – I love CMSMS. If I can and it’s propriety for the project, I always prefer CMSMS. Though – there are some features missing, that are usually pretty important aspects from the clients point of view.

- All have heard automatic updates of Wordpress. So it’s pretty hard to convience the client that still it’s good to use CMSMS though they have to pay us something ‘cause we are updating the CMS. Then the client says, that maybe we could use Wordpress and here we go…

- Module for automatic site backups (files and database).

- CMSMS should have at least a few professional customizable templates to use (and buy). It’s the look that sells. BTW, CMSMS @ Pinterest is great!

Thanks for the great work! Looking forward to CMSMS 2.0!

[Stikki]

1) We really can't offer automatic upgrade process for CMSMS because of smarty. Each template is different and uses different smarty snippets. We can't also touch templates up on upgrade process. This has been and always will be biggest asset and downside of CMSMS. WP Has ready standalone snippets that make this possible and their design is different. Personally i don't see it good that some software upgrades itself without permission either. WP has 50% of ALL CMS market share, so you gotta understand their resources are huge comparated to any other CMS as well.

2) This can be written into module. I doubt we will include one in core tho.

3) 2.0 Design Manager module is attempt to start fixing this issue, but again it won't install required modules and stuff like that, only takes care of design, css, templates, etc.

[chandra]

- All have heard automatic updates of Wordpress. So it’s pretty hard to convience the client that still it’s good to use CMSMS though they have to pay us something ‘cause we are updating the CMS. Then the client says, that maybe we could use Wordpress and here we go…

Than you have to explain your client that this is the wrong way to save money .

To the first all files need a special permission setup so they could be overwritten. But this means an additional security risk.

On the other side lets have a module which is out of support and uses a function which is no longer supported in current CMSMS version. In worst case the website will no longer work after an automatic update.

Both means trouble, and I don't like trouble .

- Module for automatic site backups (files and database).

Should be no problem cause CMSMS has a system for recurring events yet.

But there are a lot of great Perl scripts out there so it could be done by a cron job.

Backups are not the main job of a CMS and needs a lot of performance. If I have a choice I would take performance and externals backups.

Additional it's possible to book backups on your hosting company.

- CMSMS should have at least a few professional customizable templates to use (and buy). It’s the look that sells.

Is this really needed?

Go to a template seller and choose a template. I will adapt most of them to CMSMS .

On this video you can see how "simple" it is

http://www.cmsmadesimple.org/uploads/me ... chocolate/

[velden]

- CMSMS should have at least a few professional customizable templates to use (and buy). It’s the look that sells. BTW, CMSMS @ Pinterest is great!

Any html template can be converted to a CMSMS template.

Here you can get free and paid templates specially made for cmsms: http://www.cmstemplatebuddy.com/

I recently bought templates and 'converted' them to cmsms from here too: http://themeforest.net/category/site-templates

[paulbaker]

- All have heard automatic updates of Wordpress. So it’s pretty hard to convience the client that still it’s good to use CMSMS though they have to pay us something ‘cause we are updating the CMS. Then the client says, that maybe we could use Wordpress and here we go…

I had to smile just now when I went to upgrade a WordPress site - I pressed the Update site button which downloads the latest version (3.9.1) and updates it all in one "hit". It all went horribly wrong, it crashed the back end and front end of the site completely and my host is currently restoring it all for me. So it's not always quite as "automatic" as WordPress would have you believe.

CMSMS 2.0 (Beta) promises an easier upgrade procedure and from the look of what I tried it looks great. But it's never going to be automatic.

[urheat]

@Stikki
Thanks! Now I know that there can't be automatic update system, so I won't be wishing one.

@Paul
My evil side also wishes that one day one of the Wordpress sites that I'm responsible updating, is going to crash during automatic updated process. It sounds too good to be true

After reading all of the comments about "The Backup Module" I still think it would be great. For example I don't like to mess around with cron & Perl scripts and with some host you can't access terminal. Hopefully you consider this module in the future.

The best thing would be Perl/PHP -script that backups every site "automatically". I tried to code one, but I just could. This really would make whole updating process of tens of CMSMS sites faster.

I think you got me wrong with the templates. Of course you can build beautiful sites, but when we are selling CMSMS to the client, I think it would help, if there would be a few great looking "one click" templates just for CMSMS. Just a marketing thought

Thanks for replies and conversation!

[farhadprm]

Any html template can be converted to a CMSMS template.

I completely agree that any html template can be converted to a CMSMS template, but this is easy when dealing with a simple website. Instead, the job becomes difficult if you should do a complex site and customize so many things like gallery templates, Forms, FEU, etc.
The lack of attractive templates for CMSMS is the Achilles heel of this CMS.
Unfortunately, the sites that sell premium templates are two or three with a few templates. It would be very important to increase the number of free templates and identify strategies that give the motivation to developers to build templates to sell.

[Jos]

Of course you can build beautiful sites, but when we are selling CMSMS to the client, I think it would help, if there would be a few great looking "one click" templates just for CMSMS. Just a marketing thought

It would be very important to increase the number of free templates

Important to who? To the ones that want to sell their webdesign services more easily?
And who should make those free templates available do you think?
Right

[chandra]

Make a look at
http://themes.cmsmadesimple.org.

There are approximately 200 free templates. These are not enough ?

[paulbaker]

when we are selling CMSMS to the client, I think it would help, if there would be a few great looking "one click" templates just for CMSMS. Just a marketing thought

Yes I do agree with you there. We all know that the power of CMSMS is in its flexibility and it can cope with pretty much any layout. But the experienced web developer who is new to CMSMS doesn't know that. Some attractive and modern responsive themes would make CMSMS more tempting for the developer to try out. Then they will have an opportunity to see the power of the system themselves - and become regular users.

Make a look at
http://themes.cmsmadesimple.org

I see six "Editors Choice Themes", the newest of which is from March 2012. If that was the first ever CMSMS page you ever saw wouldn't you think "Oh this CMS is out of date" and hit your Back button?

[staartmees]

It's very easy to convert any template for cmsms.
http://docs.cmsmadesimple.org/layout/cr ... n-template

Even a Bootstrap template can be converted for cmsms.
http://elgatodesign.com/blog/1/59/How-t ... ade-Simple

If you are selling a complexe website to a client, you'll hardly ever find an out-of-the-box template. You'll always have a lot of work with customizing template, stylesheets, modules, e.g. ...

[DragonWebEU]

Of course you can build beautiful sites, but when we are selling CMSMS to the client, I think it would help, if there would be a few great looking "one click" templates just for CMSMS. Just a marketing thought

No one wants create great looking template for free! Developer/Designers want get paid to and there is not so much interest in cmsms themes that you get paid by displaying ads.

Make a look at
http://themes.cmsmadesimple.org.

There are approximately 200 free templates. These are not enough ?

Most of them are bad, lets be honest here! After installing template you are like:

It's really bad call by dev team not starting supporting mle or make it so you can choose when installing cms (basic modules with mle news, gallery, content). There will be more interest in cmsms.
They don't attract new users it's more marketed for US.

[Rolf]

No one wants create great looking template for free! Developer/Designers want get paid to...

Why not?? The dev-team and the module developers do it for free all the time!!

[Jos]

Why not?? The dev-team and the module developers do it for free all the time!!

I have mentioned this often before... that is the difference between developers and designers, Rolf

[chandra]

"Rolf" that is the difference between developers and designers, Rolf

There are a lot of good looking free templates, there's a guide to transform it to CMSMS - so no one needs to be a designer to submit more templates to the themes section.